Your weekend dose of WTF

Amanda Marcotte, best known for her Pandagon blog, links to one of the most fucked-up documents I’ve ever read.

Have you ever suspected that antis have a script to follow? Well, here’s proof–a link to part of an instruction manual for a group called Justice For All, which seems to specialize in haunting college campuses. There’s thirteen pages. I will admit to not having read all of them yet. I can only do little bits at a time before I want to break something and I like my stuff.

On an amusing note, our old friend JivinJ shows up in the comments. He hasn’t been here in a while, which is kind of a bummer because I wanted to know what he thinks about the Lions drafting Matthew Stafford. Ah, football, bringing pro and anti together since 2005 …

61 comments to Your weekend dose of WTF

Patricia,
I’m trying to understand the pro-choice fury over this training manual and I’m just not getting it. You don’t provide any example of what’s so horrible in the document. Marcotte and Jill from Feministe claim the documents is filled with lies but I can’t find any example where Justice for All is trying to intentionally deceive people into believing something they know to be false. I just don’t understand what’s so heinous about having a manual which trains prolifers to talk about the issue with college students some of whom who will obviously be pro-choice.

I would have preferred the Lions shore up their completely lackluster defense before spending that kind of dough on a QB. Too me (you know us conservatives types) drafting #1 overall at the QB position is just such a huge gamble, especially when they likely won’t have time to develop before seeing the field.

The Detroit newspapers are of course fawning over Stafford’s arm strength and leadership which will last until he gets put into a game somewhere mid-season and pulls a Harrington. I was more blown away by the tight end pick with the 20th pick. To me that made no sense at all.

We’ll see if the Lions other off-season free agent pick-ups produce. It’s like each year we get an entirely new secondary and each year they’re supposed to be an improvement. Not so much last year.

J–as the saying goes, if I have to explain it to you you’re not getting it. Is this group going into the ghettoes and saying stuff like this to young black women? Are they going to historically black campuses with this stuff? That would be a resounding no. Groups like these focus on young nubile white women, the last hope of the Aryan race. THAT’S what pisses me off.

I’d hoped that with the demise of Matt Millen that a little attention would be paid to the o-line, which is basically what’s keeping the Lions from contention, but no. At least Stafford’s set for life and won’t have to worry about being crippled two games into the season.

This thing sickens me. I went to a Womens College and every day there was this elderly couple standing on the sidewalk in between buildings because that was considered “city property” and the college couldn’t kick them out if they stayed right there. They handed out copies of the New Testament and anti-choice pamphlets. They would yell at women as they went to and from class. One day I got angry at them and asked them if they had ever considered that maybe one of these women they were harassing was a victim of rape or molestation and perhaps they were making it impossible for these victims to go to class knowing that they would have to encounter this crap as soon as they tried to cross the street. The elderly couple said that the women who had experienced rape or molestation must have done something to deserve it and were being punished by God. THIS is the mentality we’re dealing with. Sense, reason and science means nothing to them. They will manipulate it any way they need to in order to make it fit their skewed sense of reality.

I’ve worked in pharmacy for 7 years and I can’t count on my fingers and toes how many times I’ve had to explain to people how birth control REALLY works. The egg NEVER gets fertilized. The hormones make the body believe the egg is fertilized, but it isn’t. No embryo is created. I can show them the literature and it doesn’t matter. They believe what they want to even with the proof of their error underneath their nose.

They’re spoon fed propaganda by whatever authority figure they bow to and they believe it unquestioningly. They’re lemmings. It makes me crazy. And frightened.

Patricia,
You’re right. I’m not getting it. Is this group going into the ghettoes and saying stuff like this to young black women? Are they going to historically black campuses with this stuff? Groups like these focus on young nubile white women, the last hope of the Aryan race. THAT’S what pisses me off.

What? Look at JFA’s schedule and the colleges where they put their displays. There are a lot of state schools which have decent percentages of students who are minorities like Auburn or Texas A & M or Georgia or Texas. It’s not like they’re intentionally going to some 99% white schools in the Northeast or something. They’re to big schools some of which are in states with high percentages of minorities

So I’m still struggling to understand your opposition to a prolife group training prolife volunteers on how to talk to college students.

Bottom line–all the campuses you cited have a white majority and I seriously doubt there’s been a change recently. If you’d cited schools like Virginia Union, Howard and Tuskgagee I would have gone along with you. So sorry, try again. Or will you say my sources are bound by the liberal media?

For the record, I am quite pro-life, and the reason for my position has nothing to do with some fiendish desire to control college students’ sex lives OR a burning need for more Aryan babies. I’m pro-life because I believe that abortion unjustly takes the life of innocent human beings. Period.

Most pro-lifers that I know are pro-life for the same reason — roughly — even if they might not use exactly the same words.

So I’m wondering, Patricia … Who are all of these pro-lifers who want to control college students’ sex lives and/or make more Aryan babies? Do you actually know anyone who really thinks that way? If so, how do you know?

Assuming motive in your opponents is never wise. Pro-lifers are guilty of assuming motive with the classic “baby-killing whores” nonsense. (Fortunately, I don’t see a lot of that these days.) You and Amanda are guilty of assuming motive in your kerfluffle over the JFA pamphlet. And you are quite mistaken.

I’m trying to understand the pro-choice fury over this training manual and I’m just not getting it.

How about starting with its woeful ignorance of biology? Ectopic pregnancy is the only situation in which a pregnancy is a risk to the mother’s life? Not hardly! To start with, pregnancy and delivery are dangerous. A typical risk pregnancy ends in the death of the mother in about 1-2 times in 10,000. Not bad odds, but hardly totally safe.

Then we can move on to more clearly dangerous situations. Take, for example, pulmonary hypertension. In PH, the blood pressure in the lungs is elevated, there is right heart strain, and, ultimately, the patient can die of heart and lung failure. Pregnancy is not survivable due to lack of cardiovascular reserve to cope with the increased demand.

Then there’s HELLP syndrome. Stands for hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, and low platelets. If delivery doesn’t proceed promptly, it is fatal. If it occurs at, say, 30 weeks and the pregnant woman presents before she’s in too bad of shape, the fetus is delivered and everyone’s happy. If it occurs before reasonable viability or the mother is about to die then it’s a question of whether to have an abortion or watch the mother die.

Moving on to genetic problems, how about Ehler’s-Danlos syndrome? In some forms of EDS, the maternal mortality is 80%. Perhaps the pro-life movement thinks that the death of 8 women in ten is not too great a sacrifice.

Needless to say, pregnancy complicates the treatment of cancer. Some cancers can be treated successfully while maintaining a pregnancy, though it’s never exactly easy. Others just aren’t possible. Nor is waiting possible: death will occur before the gestation is complete.

And we haven’t even gotten into congestive heart failure, congenital cardiac malformations, hypercoaguable state, sickle cell disease, and other conditions that increase the risk of pregnancy but don’t provide the guaranteed death that the so-called pro-life movement demands.

This is, of course, not a comprehensive list. Just the first few situations I thought of. For bonus fun, I can describe what death due to complications of pregnancy looks like. It’s not exactly pretty, except perhaps to a pro-lifer who prefers women dead and silent rather than alive and disagreeing with them.

And why can’t I assume what I do about antis but they can assume whatever about who undergoes abortion? If your group visibly targets young white women and visits colleges with a major white majority while seemingly ignoring other ethnic groups, why would it come as a shock that others would believe that there’s some racism going on?

Bottom line–this group, like pretty much every anti group, believes that women don’t know their own minds and can be talked out of their decisions. THAT’S what gets me in a kerfluffle. Amanda takes it a bit further than I did–I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the biggest Pandagon fan because of it.

Listed below are more details to add to your original account of the dangers of pregnancy, or complications of high risk pregnancy. It seems you have left out some vital information for your “pro choice” followers. You should be presenting the complete picture, not just dramatizing things to beef up your case that abortion is the fix-all solution. The data listed below on the complications you spelled out came from well recognized medical journals and studies and can all be found online. Yes, there are high risk pregnancies, but that does not mean they all have to be terminated immediately, nor do pro life people say they should not be. There are experts- doctors with specialized training, to assist women whom have a high risk pregnancy. Killing their babies isn’t always a necessary “choice”. Pro lifers care about the mother and the unborn human baby! Additionally, it should be remembered that the MAJORITY of abortions are NOT for life threatening reasons, but for convenience. (oh, I know it’s a “choice” and I shouldn’t be judging your reasons, right?) It SERIOUSLY bothers me that you and your pro abortion clan LIE to women and yet, people who believe the unborn baby humans should have rights (especially in the late 2nd and 3d trimester when they are VIABLE… disgusting!!!)- are told WE are the liars??? Completely mystifies me.

Pulmonary Hypertension:
Although hypertension is the most common and significant risk factor in pregnancy, the risks can be minimized with careful supervision and therapy.
The mere presence of hypertension, even of severe hypertension, is neither a contraindication to pregnancy nor an indication for the termination of
pregnancy, provided that appropriate management principles are applied. For optimum management, the skills of the obstetrician, the physician and,
later in pregnancy, of the neonatologist should all be employed to the full. The ability to monitor the fetus closely, and to offer intensive care
to the premature newborn, is critical in making decisions about the timing and mode of delivery. These women, as all other women with high-risk pregnancies, should be receiving treatment in centres which can offer adequate care both to the mother and to the baby. Med J Aust. 1985

Ehler’s Danlos Syndrome: is a hereditary alteration of connective tissue, characterized by hyperelastic joints, tissues, and skin. It encompasses a wide spectrum of disease and only has an estimated incidence of approximately 1:150,000 (Beighton, 1968a) Following a thorough literature review, it seems wise to perform early delivery by cesarean section for pregnant women suffering from Ehlers-Danlos type IV. (c) 2007 S. Karger AG, Basel

Treatment of Cancer:
“Depending on the stage of their cancer and their medical health, ending the pregnancy may be appropriate,” states Karin M.E.H. Gwyn, M.D., “but it is not always necessary.” Pregnant women can undergo biopsies and even be treated for cancer with chemotherapy while being pregnant. The cancer most commonly diagnosed during pregnancy is breast cancer, followed by cervical cancer, then lymphoma and thyroid cancer. With the exception of most cases of cervical cancer, pregnancy and cancer treatment
are not mutually exclusive.

We’d rather women dead and silent??? Come on, get real!!!! The truth is YOU would rather their babies be DEAD AND SILENT!!!

What about other children, Sara? Another strange idea that antis seem to have is that a current pregnancy is the only pregnancy. It always seems to be overlooked that sixty percent of women having abortions have one or more children already (source here). You’re a mother (at least that’s what your e-mail address states). I assume you love your kids. Could you orphan your existing children for the sake of a fetus?

I skimmed through the 13 pages on the rhreality website. The things that struck me the most were that in one section, they claim that the ONLY situation in which an abortion is (barely) justified are those of ectopic pregnancies. They then list other health issues (listed under “threats that are not threats” includes: preeclampsia toxemia, eclampsia (toxemia with seizures), placenta previa, placenta abruption) that can crop up in pregnancy (it’s interesting to consider why they listed ONLY those issues and ignored others) and state that these aren’t justifiable reasons to obtain an abortion and that women suffering from them should take the risk regardless of what their doctors advise. My husband’s cousin died when she was 32 weeks pregnant due to preeclampsia because she refused to follow the recommendations of her doctors. And this was not a long time ago when health care was not as advanced, this was less than 5 years ago. They also claim that women with cancer should accept care (including chemotherapy) and that the fetus can simply “tolerate it” with no discussion of birth defects or damage at all.

The point is not that these treatments and conditions cannot be treated and therefore an abortion is unnecessary (which seems to be the prevailing argument of the handbook). The point is that only the Woman facing those risks can decide whether she *SHOULD* continue to do so in consultation with her doctors. Just because she MAY not die from it doesn’t mean that she should be forced to take wait and see what happens.

In the section covering the prochoice argument that making abortion illegal will lead to Women’s deaths via unsafe abortion, they claim “women did not die in *droves* pre-Roe” (so those that did are not an issue or are simply irrelevant? At how many dead do they become relevant?) and that women won’t die if abortion is criminalized because doctors will still perform them (illegally?) and “abortifacients” will still be available to them (and, of course, availability just means that they will be completely safe to utilize even though they are illegal). They also claim that coathangers are “never used for abortion”!

Then the handbook goes on to discuss condoms and birth control (and remember, this group goes onto COLLEGE campuses) and how neither should be used. They claim that oral contraceptives aren’t actually contraceptives, trotting out the tired and illogical attempts to rename them as “abortifacients.” THEY FLAT OUT LIE about the methods of action of hormonal contraceptives and they do so in a rather condescending mock exchange between a “counselor” and college age woman.

For me, that was the most disgusting portion of the handbook. The few tools we have to truly prevent pregnancy (as long as people have access to them and are educated about them) are shot down based on a fallacious personal opinion. If someone had come up to me with this nonsense in college, I would have literally laughed in their faces.

As you and I both pointed out, delivery is the preferred method for dealing with HELLP syndrome that occurs after viability. Abortion is the preferred method for dealing with HELLP syndrome that occurs earlier. Continuing the pregnancy for more than a day or two will result in a dead woman and fetus. In the rare instance that HELLP syndrome occurs before viability or in conjunction with fetal problems such as small for gestational age which make viability even past the nominal point of viability unlikely abortion is the most reasonable recommendation.

There are reports of women with EDS type IV delivering successfully by c-section. Other women with EDS who attempt to deliver by c-section die of bleeding into the spine (if spinal anesthesia is used), bleeding from intubation trauma (if general is used), post-operative infection (brought about by poor healing) and other complications. Nonetheless, I agree that this is a better bet than vaginal delivery, which generally results in death due to aortic dissection.

There are small case series of successful treatment of cancer during pregnancy. Cancer is not one disease and some types of cancer are more amenable to treatment than others. There is a relatively extensive literature on breast cancer treatment during pregnancy. It can be done but the pregnancy certainly limits options and increases the risk. For example, radiation is contraindicated and so lumpectomy can not be performed. And postponing radiation in some forms of breast cancer can be deadly. Needless to say, cervical can not be treated during pregnancy since the mainstays of cervical cancer treatment are radiation/chemo and surgery. There are case reports of the successful treatment of Hodgkin’s lymphoma during pregnancy but the numbers are too small to get any real idea of how the pregnancy affects the outcome. For example, PET scanning, the standard of care for detecting recurrent disease, is contraindicated during pregnancy. Multiple myeloma, which is treated with thalidomide, is not a really good thing to have during pregnancy either.

To “imnotsorry.net” as far as answering your question about “could I orphan my existing children for the sake of a fetus”? That bothers me on so many levels and is so telling of the terminology and how it has lied and desensitized the proabortion movement. To start- that is to say my fetus a. doesn’t exist and b. isn’t my child????? BOTH ARE INACCURATE. My fetus a. does exist as a current offspring of mine and b. is as much of my child as my current born child. !!!!
I think what we have is discrimination based upon where unborn babies live and that they don’t come into existance being a 6 foot 200 lb male bringing in six figures. Give me a break! The fetus I carried during my pregnancy IS my son now (only he doesn’t reside in my stomach anymore… but he is the SAME LITTLE PERSON!!!) And if I were to conceive another “fetus” it would be AS MUCH OF A WORTHY BEING as my son is! A fetus isn’t a martian from space… it’s a little baby… the EXACT one that comes out after 5-9 months in our stomachs. EXACT… only larger. So, to answer your question I would first need it rephrased to, “Would I risk my own death for my CHILDREN-the one in the womb and the one outside the womb- so the one in my womb could continue their life? And the answer is- yes I did. The experts that exist, like the perinatologist I went to when I was pregnant with my son, was committed to & successful in helping me AND my baby so we could BOTH stay healthy during the period I was pregnant. Pregnancy doesn’t last forever, people forget that!
Of course there are high risk pregnancies, there always have been and always will be. But justifying all abortions because a small percentage are truly high risk and medically necessary is a smoke screen and is trying to get people to not see what is really going on. THE MAJORITY of abortions are NOT for medically necessary reasons, even in 3d trimester abortions. Abortion is taking a human life. PERIOD. Just the facts. If you disagree do some looking into fetal development. (you won’t find any info on that on pro choice sites, thats for sure. They want you to make a “choice” but don’t want you to know what you are choosing to “terminate” (kill) by “emptying the contents of your uterus” (forcibly grab and kill your unborn baby and rip them away from your body) whether they are still teeny tiny or big and plump, either way they are the same baby, I mean, fetus, I mean “contents of your uterus”… Yeah.

Wow, great to know you’d deprive your child of a mother just so that all-important fetus (more important than you, anyway) could be born. You think he/she would be all “oh, Mommy was AWESOME in giving her life so that my little brother/sister could be born”? No, it would be more like “I HATE that little shit for killing my mommy.” Welcome to reality, enjoy your stay.

And be careful next time you weed your garden. You’re killing so many unborn fruits and vegetables.

Here’s yet another really great quote from the manual: “Delivery can also be attempted after 24 weeks with reasonable assurance that the fetus will live.” Uh, no. 60-70% of neonates born at 25+ weeks gestational age will live with up to 50% of survivors having severe physical or mental defects. And that’s the best case scenario, assuming the fetus is not small for gestational age or otherwise compromised. Source.

30-40% mortality is NOT “reasonable assurance” that the newborn will live. It’s a chance worth taking, IMHO, but no parent of a 25 week GA newborn should be told that everything will be fine. For as many as 40% of them everything will be the opposite of fine. And up to 50% of survivors will have a life which will now be dominated by the needs of their severely debilitated child.

I wonder if statements like that aren’t part of what makes it so easy for the “pro-life” movement to murder doctors. If they believe that babies born at 25 weeks should be perfectly ok then it is all the more devastating if they give birth at 25 weeks and the baby dies. The implication is that if 25 weekers should survive then someone must have deliberately killed the baby. A bunch of people expecting miracles, angry when they don’t get them, hating those who they think had the power to work the miracle…I can see how it might all lead to homicide.

it’s a little baby… the EXACT one that comes out after 5-9 months in our stomachs. EXACT… only larger.

Again, no. Before two weeks the phrase “a ball of cells” is pretty accurate. (Not entirely, but I don’t think the details of how much hox is expressed in cell 4 versus cell 8 make it “a little baby.” At 2-8 weeks the embryo is not even vaguely human looking and contains no to few working neurons. Not at all like a baby. Only very late fetuses–the time period in which abortion is rare and heavily regulated–look or act even vaguely like babies.

It isn’t even clear that a less than 2 week old blastulocyst is going to be a baby ever. It may still twin, leading (if all goes well in later development) to two babies, unless you’re going to tell me that identical twins-natural clones-are really one person. Two concepti can also merge, forming a chimera which will develop into a single person, unless you’re going to claim that chimeras are really two people. (In which case, neat: I’m going to have all my organs separately genotyped…maybe I’m entitled to two votes!)

First of all I am so sick and tired of your worst case scenario “giving birth will always make your life terrible/horrible/unlivable” stories! Just because a mother successfully navigates her way through a high risk pregnancy (or whatever her situation) and CHOOSES NOT to abort her baby, doesn’t mean her life forever sucks!!! Enough of those stories/predictions already… let women make up their own stories- don’t scare them into killing their babies.
Secondly, the word fetus means baby in latin… pro aborts are so skilled at believing and communicating about fetuses with such hatred. The hated F E T U S. The F E T U S is your B A B Y. I am shocked and in disbelief that in 2009 an adult would compare seeds in the garden with an unborn baby (fetus) in it’s mother’s stomach. Really I can’t even find a way to respond, it’s so unbelievably ignorant. It’s not even comparing an unborn baby to an animal’s rights (pro vegetarian for instance) but to fruit and vegetable seeds??? COME ON!!
If you have the nerve… check out fetal development FACTS from the 2 links below (NOT pro life sites, just the facts from non-biased sources!)http://www.medicinenet.com/fetal_development_pictures_slideshow/article.htm
and…http://www.pregnancy.org/article/overview-fetal-development

And one more thing, according to the second site, and every other credible source on fetal development (because it’s a FACT!):
“Week 8: Now a little more than an inch long, the fetus has everything found in a fully developed adult.”
Now, go ahead and compare THAT 8 week fetus/ baby/ contents of a mother’s uterus, to a cucumber seed sitting in a weedy garden… yeah, that makes a lot of sense. (sarcasm implied).

DIANE,
YOU NEED HELP!!! YOU SOUND MEDICALLY KNOWLEDGEABLE but to claim an 8 week fetus is not even vaguely human looking and contains no to few working neurons… I think you need to research fetal development BIG TIME!!!!!!! Seriously!!! And quick!!!!! There are trillions of sources, documents, experts who would laugh in your face. Help yourself, Daine!!!

Wow, I haven’t seen anti flailing this entertaining here since View was posting. I can hear the gnashing of teeth and the pounding on the keyboard from here. Caps lock and everything. I’m surprised on that last one the exclamation points didn’t contain an ELEVENTY!!1! Keep up the good work, Sara!

I sometimes wonder just how many resources are used to keep alive those babies who are born at 24 weeks.

You know, there are so many children in this world living in abject poverty, starving to death, having to walk miles to get to school because resource are so scarce (I just saw on CNN this incredible story of a woman who gave up almost everything to build a school in her native country of Ethiopia because many children there had to walk miles to get to school, and one child who had not kept up with the other children got attacked and killed by a hyena. She is a true hero in my eyes)and Sara Elizabeth, you argue about fertilized eggs, and zygotes, and fetuses and high risk pregnancies and extremely premmaturally born babies, all the while forgetting that women in other countries have absolutely NO ONE to take care of their already born children if they have to go through a high risk pregnancy, or die giving birth, and have to watch their premmaturely born child die because they have absolutely NO resources to even give this child a chance. If women in those situations choose to abort (if they even have the ability to do so) are they murderers as well? Do you actually believe that their 8 week old fetus baby should take precedence over the mother’s life, and the lives of her already born children?

Sometimes I wonder how we in this country can hoard so many resources to get pregnant artificially when we cannot get pregnant naturally, to maintain pregnancies that would be doomed for women in other countries, and then funnel even more resources into taking care of the severly premmature infant that we may have artificially created (e.g. via IVF, which is not allowed by the RCC by the way)and maintained, while ingnoring the fact that there are so many children in this country and in others, that are in desperate need of some of these resources.

We in this country are so arrogant that we think it is okay to use vast amounts of resources to maintain high risk pregnancies, etc. all the while forgetting that we are not the only ones in this world who have high risk pregnancies and premmature babies.

I saw a documentary about women in the Phillipines, and how they tried to self abort because they could not stand having to see another child they could not support suffer the poverty , another child of their’s that had to spend each day digging through mounds of garbage just to get food, another child without hope, and all because the women’s “health groups” that came to their country from America, along with the extreme views of the Phillipine goverment, outlawed birth control.

This is how incredibly selfish and shortsighted people in this ountry can be, to enforce our will on people who can barely survive, and then put all of their energy into screaming at women about aborting even an 8 week old fetus.

Also, I would like to see more of the “trillions” of documents that you are telling us exist. I appreciate sources, but it is difficult to take one seriously who uses language such as “trillions.”

And please, please stop typing in caps and thereby yelling at everyone, and also refrain from using so much excessive punctuation. It makes it very difficult for me to not only read what you have to say, but also for me to take you seriously.

And finally, your fetus child _did not_ grow in your _stomach_. A pregnancy (even a high risk one) is deveoloped in the _uterus_ (unless it is an ectopic pregnancy, but then that doesn’t develop in you stomach either). If you have so much medical knowledge, then you would not insist that children develop in one’s stomach.

Just to note at how ignorant many of the things this Sara girl is saying…..fetus does not mean “baby” in Latin.

The word fetus is from the Latin fetus, meaning offspring, bringing forth, hatching of young. It has Indo-European roots related to sucking or suckling.

Not quite baby.

Also, while an 8 week old fetus has the components of an actual baby, it takes the combination of those components and a series of complex reactions with chemicals and events in the woman to actually make a baby. An 8 week old fetus is not a baby waiting to unfold.

Patricia,
Your argument still makes no sense. Yeah, the big school college campuses have a majority of white students (not at all surprising). I still have no idea why you think an organization like Justice for All training prolifers to talk to college students (some of whom are minorities) is so “f-ed up.”

Nor do I understand how JFA going to historically black colleges would make the training manual less “f-ed up.” There is also some probability that JFA needs to be invited by some group on campus.

So is late term abortion but I’m wondering in what health circumstances would someone abort a third trimester pregnancy instead of delivering the baby and do you have any evidence that delivering a child in the third trimester is more dangerous than having an abortion?

The fact is the vast majority of pregnancy complications can be treated without intentionally ending the life of the child. I’ve never seen a pro-choicer respond to Thomas Murphy Goodwin’s piece “Medicalizing Abortion Decisions” (which the JFA manual uses as a source) because when a woman actually wants to bring her child (ectopic pregnancies aside) to birth instead of killing her, it is very rare that abortion is the solution to her problem.

“Delivery can also be attempted after 24 weeks with reasonable assurance that the fetus will live.” Uh, no. 60-70% of neonates born at 25+ weeks gestational age will live with up to 50% of survivors having severe physical or mental defects.

Ummmm…. So what’s not accurate about the statement? The statement doesn’t say “Premature children won’t have any problems.” It just says (and accurately according to your statistics) that children born after 24 weeks have reasonable chance to live.

It’s a chance worth taking, IMHO, but no parent of a 25 week GA newborn should be told that everything will be fine.

And JFA manual doesn’t say “everything will be fine” does it?

So I’m still not seeing anything presented her which provies JFA is lying. I disagree with some of their assertions regarding contraception but that doesn’t mean they’re lying. People can genuinely believe something which isn’t true.

I don’t know, but my mother didn’t abort me, and she’s one of the most miserable people I know. I’ve brought this up to pro-lifers before, and never have gotten even a comment from them. Maybe you’ll do me the honors.

My mother gave birth and she absolutely HATES kids. She likes animals better than kids. You say you want women to tell their own stories, but tell ME, Sara: Do you even WANT to hear my mother’s story? My mother admits that she felt absolutely NOTHING for me after I was born. NOTHING. My mother has absolutely NO maternal instinct whatsoever. She didn’t raise me, either. What’s your reaction to her story? And please spare me the comment of “she shouldn’t have had sex if she didn’t want kids…” Leave that out, and tell me your reaction to her story without demonizing her. If you can even THINK about this issue without resorting to graphic descriptions or demonizing women just because they don’t fit your pro-life agenda, let me know. (I’m not holding my breath. It’s been my observation that pro-lifers would rather pretend women like my mother don’t even exist.)

Also, would you be friends with my mother, Sara? How many unwed Hispanic mothers are you buddies with? I’ll venture to guess NONE. The most you and JivinJ would probably do for my mother is shove a tract in her face and go on your merry way. In fact, I wasn’t even born in a Catholic hospital, because they wouldn’t allow unwed mothers to darken the hospital’s doorstep. That was a long time ago, but the subtle attitude of rejecting women that don’t fit the Holy Madonna image still exists in the Catholic institution, and probably in many other churches as well. This is way I don’t go to church anymore. I got tired of listening to the BS.

And btw, my mother and I are good friends now. If she had aborted me, it wouldn’t have made a difference to anyone, except that my mother would have had a happier life with more opportunities. I think it’s a blessing she didn’t have any more kids.

J–it’s not the training. I’ve been trained, per se, for PP stuff. But there’s no manual, no meticulous details. It’s mostly “here, sign a petition to protect women’s health.” It’s been a while, I might have forgotten, but that was roughly the gist of it. This thing smacks of a sales pitch right down to the rebuttals and instruction on how to feign sympathy/empathy/whatever, a bill of goods for antis to sell. And if what you say is true about JFA having to be invited onto campuses, perhaps it’s telling that they’re not being invited onto historically black campuses. Like it or not, the visible faces of the anti-abortion movement in this country are almost uniformly lily-white … and the ethnic group that has the most abortions? African-Americans.

No, Amanda, the “offspring” description you described is the etymology (the history of the linguistic form of the word). The actual dictionary definition is: “a developing human from usually two months after conception to birth.” Your Fetus is your developing human… like it or not! Don’t blame people who oppose abortion for the facts of life. No matter what you call it (fetus, baby, unborn infant, preborn baby, contents of the uterus, products of conception)… it’s still the same thing! Good try on that one, though, Amanda.

It may make YOU feel better to refer to it as the foreign, meaningless and hated fetus (unless you plan to keep it and then it’s all of a sudden your precious, unborn baby) but whatever meaning YOU attribute to the unborn baby, it’s value and life remains THE SAME regardless of what meaning you attribute to it. Just like all humans who have value, even if they live in a culture or region of the world where they are currently oppressed or killed, it doesn’t mean they actually HAVE less value, it just means there are ignorant people who are don’t value them. But they still have value. PERIOD.

And it will certainly make you feel better to reason your abortion with predictions of the horrible life your baby and you would have had, even if you had chosen adoption. But that doesn’t mean it’s the truth of what would have happened. The truth is that you will never really know what it might have been, had you had your baby. You cannot really take someone else’s bad experience (after I had my baby my whole life was horrible) and say “yep, that would have been me” because life is not so predictable and known to us in advance… you would only know if you had chosen to continue to let your child live out their life. (Roxanne, I don’t diminish those who had a bad upbringing, their struggles are real.) But you have to remember the truth of it is that WHETHER THEY WERE “PLANNED” or NOT- bad parenting doesn’t discriminate on income, nationality, race, religion or whether the child was “planned” or not! It could happen to any child in any family at any time! Period. A very financially stable, two parent home with a planned pregnancy could end up being a life of tremendous struggle and abuse for a child. I’ve know plenty of those. And there are plenty of single parent households with unplanned pregnancies who have a stable and respectful household for a child. Don’t stereotype others just because of your situation. Again, bad parenting DOES NOT discriminate! Good things CAN happen in life with the birth of an unplanned baby, whether the baby is kept or given up for adoption.

Amanda says: “an 8 week old fetus is not a baby waiting to unfold, it takes the series of complex reactions w/ chemicals and events in the woman to make the baby.”
Aren’t there complex reactions with chemicals and events involved in growth at every age and every stage of human development?! Why do pro aborts exclude the new baby human in the amazement and mystery of human growth and development? We marvel at our nieces and nephews when it’s been many months since we’ve seen them and we can barely recognize them, but when it comes to the amazing growth of our own unborn babies we use it as a way to say we should be able to kill them, because they are in a process of growth and development, just like all human beings, and they just look too “small”, they don’t look big enough to be given the right to continue living??

You are correct, Amanda, that at 8 weeks the fetus isn’t viable yet, it has to grow larger and more developed before it will be able to live outside the womb on it’s own! But you also incorrect because the fertilized egg has shown its autonomy in survival outside the mother’s body, and has further shown its autonomy implanted into another woman! The fertilized egg does NOT take on the surrogate mother’s characteristics, but develops according to its own DNA make up! It is it’s own little person/human/baby/fetus right from the start, no matter whose womb it is living in!

“And there are plenty of single parent households with unplanned pregnancies who have a stable and respectful household for a child.” I forgot to add that in regards to these households I’ve known many of these as well.

“Roxanne, I don’t diminish those who had a bad upbringing. Their struggles were real.”

That’s nice. But you didn’t answer my question. Would you be friends with someone like my mom? How many women like my mom are you friends with? And you completely ignored my question of what your reaction is to my mother’s story, as a woman with no maternal instinct, and with absolutely no reaction to carrying a fetus. She felt NOTHING while carrying a fetus, and she felt NOTHING after the baby’s birth, either. Once again, a pro-lifer is ignoring my mother as a viable human being. Go figure.

It’s not about ME, Sara. It’s about my mom. You know, the incubator? The vessel, that chose not to abort? I didn’t ask for your opinion on me or my life or my “upbringing.” I asked you about my mom.

My mother’s a human being too, Sara. It’s not all about fetuses. AMAZING. You guys really amaze me. It doesn’t really surprise me that you guys need a training manual to push your agenda because you are so out of touch with reality, you don’t even see a woman as a human being. It’s all about the fetus. Amazing.

Thank you for proving my point, Sara. I’ll put that down as one more pro-lifer who has completely ignored my mother. See, I knew you wouldn’t prove me wrong.

If you could take a peek inside your womb, you’d spot minute details, like tiny nails forming on fingers and toes and peach-fuzz hair beginning to grow on tender skin.

In other developments: Your baby’s limbs can bend now. His hands are flexed at the wrist and meet over his heart, and his feet may be long enough to meet in front of his body. The outline of his spine is clearly visible through translucent skin, and spinal nerves are beginning to stretch out from his spinal cord. Your baby’s forehead temporarily bulges with his developing brain and sits very high on his head, which measures half the length of his body. From crown to rump, he’s about 1 1/4 inches long. In the coming weeks, your baby will again double in size — to nearly 3 inches.

Mmmm… is this a hard question for you? It looks like a little human baby (yes, very little– we don’t all start out as a 6’5 200 lb man in a business suit!) it behaves like a little human, and it grows like a little human baby…??? Hmmm….

“But you are also incorrect because the fertilized egg has shown its autonomy in survival outside the mother’s body, and has further shown its autonomy implanted into another woman!”

But the egg still needs something outside of itself to keep it alive and developing, or to keep it in a state of suspended animation when or IF it gets implanted. It can’t survive at this point without either parasitizing a host (this is in truth, the nature of the relationship between the egg, fetus whatever, and the woman who carries it)or being placed in a totally unnatural environment of being frozen. It’s not able to exist without either coexisting, or having all of its biological processes essentially stopped until a suitable host is found.

Parasite refers to an alien organism living its life in the expense of its host. All parasites in nature use a species of different kind as host. There aren’t parasites living in its own kind in the nature. FETUS IS AN OFFSPRING. There is no scientific classification that puts offsprings in parasitic catagory. The things your own body create can not be considered parasitic. YOU may consider an unwanted fetus a parasite, and that will surely make you feel better about your choice to abort your developing human fetus, however, remember, the DNA of that little human is already predetermined and set.

So, you can justify that your baby is a parasite and doesn’t deserve to live because it making indirect contact with you, by way of the umbilical cord and placenta. You can think whatever you want. Heck, you can call your newly born baby a parasite when he or she is nursing and drinking YOUR milk, if you want. The point is, medically, a developing unborn baby is NOT a parasite- even if you think it is parasitic in nature for the duration it is in utero. That is your perogative, to think what you want. But it doesn’t change the value of that little human.

Diane said that when I was pregnant with my son he wasn’t the same little person I have now. AND SHE IS WRONG. I have the ultrasound pictures to prove it. The ultrasound pics of him during pregnancy even look like him, because it WAS HIM. Yes, he was much smaller, yes, he wasn’t as developed as he is now… but that is the story of HUMAN DEVELOPMENT from when human life originates until the human dies. He isn’t as developed TODAY as he will be 1 year from today, so… I should be able to end his life today, because I deem him not “developed” enough. Give me a break! Like I said previously, IT LOOKS LIKE (perhaps A VERY SMALL) BABY (eyes,ears, hands, fingers, toes, beating heart, etc) IT BEHAVES like a human baby (in the womb kicking, sucking it’s thumb, swallowing) , it genetically has the make up of a human baby, and it grows like a baby… Well, folks, the chances are… what you’ve got is A BABY, oh, I mean unborn baby, I mean, fetus, I mean, content of your uterus, I mean products of conception…

Here: a few reasons that while you may think an embryo or later the fetus is a parasite to you, consider the following:

1. A parasite is an invading organism — coming from an outside source. A human fetus is formed from a fertilized egg — the egg coming from an inside source, being formed in the ovary of the mother!
2.While a parasite makes direct contact with the host’s tissues, often holding on by either mouth parts, hooks or suckers to the tissues involved (intestinal lining, lungs, connective tissue)- a human embryo or fetus makes direct contact with the uterine lining of the mother for ONLY A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME. It soon becomes isolated inside its own amniotic sac, and from that point on makes indirect contact with the mother only by way of the umbilical cord and placenta.
3.If you look at when a parasite invades host tissue, the host tissue will sometimes respond by forming a capsule to surround the parasite and cut it off from other surrounding tissue. When the human embryo or fetus attaches to the lining tissue of the mother’s uterus,the mother’s body ESTABLISHES A MEANS OF CLOSE CONTACT (the placenta) between the mother and the new human being.
4.Once a parasite invades the definitive host, will usually REMAIN WITH THE HOST FOR LIFE (as long as it or the host survives). A human embryo or fetus has a temporary association with the mother, remaining only a number of months in the uterus. (Thomas L. Johnson, Professor of Biology, Mary Washington College, Fredericksburg, VA.)

You know, I’ve heard so many pro aborts spew all sorts of reasonings…. it’s a seed in a garden, it’s a choice, it’s a parasite, it’s a blob of tissues…. and there are MANY more. But someone posted this to me and this is something that I think gets to the heart of the difference between pro lifer and pro aborts…
“Before it’s born, the woman in whose body it grows assigns it value. Any moral dilemma over whether it is born or terminated is hers to decide and hers alone.”

That to me IS the reason a woman can go to a late term abortionist and kill her pre born baby at 23 weeks, and another woman can go into preterm labor at the exact same gestation at deliver her preterm baby (once it’s born, alive presumably, which is why abortionists HAVE to make sure that fetus is dead before it comes out)

The timeframe of a fetus does NOT have an ending date, only a beginning (8 weeks). As soon as the 23 week fetus is born it is AUTOMATICALLY A BABY…. (ding ding ding…did you hear the magic bells of human rights and human value ringing??!!??….(sarcasm). Isn’t it amazing that a woman (she is a mother… but of a dead child now) can have the exact same age of human babies-one is now a worthless dead fetus to be thrown away in a garbage can and the other is a preterm and precious baby who will get to live his or her life.

Amazing that a woman can ASSIGN rights to her unborn babies. Unborn humans do not have rights on their own. NO, not according to the pro abort clan. The women DECIDE which babies have rights and which do not. This is the rational of the pro abort movement. THIS IS SCAREY. When humans decide which other humans have rights and do not have rights… this leads to VERY bad things and history proves that.

In the last paragraph I am refering to when humans decide which other humans have the right TO LIFE and which humans don’t have the right to life. Whose life has value and whose life does NOT have any value, and it is okay to kill them.

Roxanne,
It sounds as if your mother has (or had) some emotional health issues or other issues. The point is that this is not too uncommon of an occurance in life. We all are only human. That is why we have professionals, like counselors, etc. to help sort through the difficult times in life. Your mother isn’t alone in her struggles, that is for sure. We’ve all been in hard places in our lives. Especially as women. I wonder if you were to ask her today if she was glad she gave birth to you (in retrospect) if she would answer yes. I am thinking she probably would say “yes”. It seems that even if someone is struggling with their own issues, their child is not their “worst decision” but many times a child could end up being a light of hope for them. I don’t mean while you were a baby, but today… today is she grateful she has you for her daughter and friend in life.? Sometimes as children (even grown-up children) we feel responsible and to blame for all our parents struggles, personal to them or not. Really children take ownership and assign the blame to themselves, but if they asked their parent, often times the parent would say their problems had very little to do with them.

Which leads me to the next thought about your mother. It could be that YOU (or an unplanned pregnancy) was NOT the real issue. But that the unplanned pregnancy is just a visible sign of difficult areas in a woman’s life. Similar to how losing a job or being in an unhealthy relationship might be. So the unplanned pregnancy IS unplanned and IS a difficult situation, but maybe IT isn’t THE problem. Maybe there are other external problems or internal problems that a woman (your mother) needs to pay attention to and work through. If there is an issue (like a parent being diagnosed with a deadly disease, or a personal but debilitating issue from her past that she never resolved)- she needs to start seeing a counselor regularly, address depression issues, join an online support group, meet with friends who will be supportive, etc. What I mean by this is that we tell a woman to “terminate” (end) her pregancy (the life of her unborn child) and then her life can be good again. But maybe her life problems aren’t that unborn baby. And I question a “choice” that takes the life of your baby as a good “choice”- even if it seems to make your life better initially, just because the issue of being pregnant is taken away. But what is quick and relatively simple, doesn’t mean it’s just or healthy or beneficial to you (or that child you killed) in the long run.

I empathize with your mother that she didn’t have maternal feelings while she was pregnant with you and after you were born. But also (what I mentioned in my first post) which was that bad situations and complicated issues and problems don’t just affect women in unplanned pregnancies or just during the pregancy period. Unplanned pregnancies aren’t the only stressor in life. I would offer your mother similiar suggestions that I would offer myself or offer to other women or men who were having difficulty in life. For instance, what about the woman with a 3 month old baby who finds out her husband is cheating on her- is she advised to kill her baby, because the baby complicates her life. NO. Or what about the family who has a young child with autism and that child is complicating their life and making it difficult, are they told to terminate that child’s life? NO. I know you don’t want to hear about the fetus/unborn baby (typical to pro aborts!!) but it still comes down to… if the unborn baby has the right to live, no matter what troubles his or her parent is encountering (and we know there are many difficult situations that come up in life, many of them when we least expect them.) Abortion is the only excuse to kill another human (YOUR CHILD!) because things are difficult in your life at the time. If your baby fetus is in your womb and you feel that baby will complicate your life you can kill him or her. However, you may not kill him or her 1 second after you give birth to him or her (and legally you could have aborted them days before!) It’s that MAGICAL PASSING THROUGH THE BIRTH CANAL! (Unless of course it’s the the unborn baby’s feet, arms and body passing through the birth canal during an Intact D&X (partial birth abortion), to which the abortionist jams blunt scissors into the base of the babies skull and suctions out the babies brains, which kills the baby… duh!). But if the baby is deemed worthy of the right to live and the birth happens normally, that magical passing of the baby through the birth canal turns a worthless fetus into a precious baby!!! Amazing!!! (sarcasm implied).

Back to your mother, (what you want me to respond to, you don’t want to think about that annoying little entity called FETUS) I don’t know the reasons behind why your mother didn’t choose adoption for you- but adoption is a choice to consider if women feel they aren’t able to raise a child. Why kill your own flesh and blood when there are hundreds of people who are dieing (no pun intended) to have a baby of their own. Roxanne, I am sorry for your mothers struggles, and all women’s struggles in life. We know that that life is not easy much of the time. Pregnancy terminates itself after 6 – 9 months, it doesn’t last forever. We should question whether killing a baby is an acceptable solution to a hard time.

Keep up the good fight sara! it’s not that difficult to keep these goons down. They know they are a minority without a solid foundation and they are well aware that the majority of the legs that walk this clay are kicking up strong morals against them. Just don’t make it about religion because that’s where they get their vice. Religion has nothing to do with morals…

Patricia,I’ve been trained, per se, for PP stuff. But there’s no manual, no meticulous details. It’s mostly “here, sign a petition to protect women’s health.” It’s been a while, I might have forgotten, but that was roughly the gist of it.

PP wasn’t a “debate” scenario. It was “here’s a petition.” If something was said about abortion or someone said “well, I don’t want to sign because PP does abortions” the response was “okay, thanks.” No beating people over the head with “but WHYYYY do you think that way?”

And one should not be “trained” to show sympathy, particularly if the “training” is to get someone to agree with one’s viewpoint.

Wow–I cannot believe that just because I disagree with you S.E. that it must be because I am trying to rationalize something to myself. Let me state for the record that I have never had an abortion (but if I did, I would not be ashamed to say so), so it may be that I just disagree with you! I don’t have any underlying “need” to rationalize something to myself to make myself feel better about anything. I just have a different viewpoint. Would I have an abortion? I don’t know–I have never been in the situation where I have had to consider that option. I do have friends who for very good reasons have had abortions. Do I judge them or call them murderers? No. They did what they thought best for their families and themselves in situations that I would hope no one would have to find themselves in. This is not a black and white world as much as you would like to make it to be so.

Yes, the egg comes from the mother, but the sperm comes from the father, e.g. a source outside of the mother (host). No sperm, no fertilized egg, no pregnancy, no dependent entity within the woman. So yes, there _needs_ to be an outside contribution for that egg to become fertilized!

As for your parasites, there are many parasites that do not spend their entire lives living in/on their hosts. Ticks, for example (which you may realize also parasitize people, not just your dog or cat) only remain on the host long enough to feed, then they drop off. Fleas, cuterebra and maggots are others. For example, flies lay their eggs on infected and/or decaying tissue, the eggs hatch, the larvae feed, become maggots, which feed and then _leave_ the host, pupate in the environment, and become flies. This takes place in a matter of days in hot weather, so this can be a very short period of parastism.
I apologize if I use veterinary examples, I work in the veterinary field as a nurse.

There are parasites that require intermediate hosts to develop the life cycle that will be infectious to the final host. Heartworm in dogs is one that comes to mind. A mosquito bites an infected dog, the heartworm micorfilaria stays in the mosquito and develops into the infective larval stage. The mosquito bites another dog, and that dog gets infected with the larval stage that can cause heartworm disease. If a dog gets heartworm, we can treat it, and it does not remain infected for life. The adult heartworm does not wall off, but lives free floating in the dog’s heart and blood vessels. It is not attatched at all to the host, yet it shares a parasitic relationship with the host. So much for a parasite having to have direct contact with the host.

So the fetus only makes “indirect contact with the mother” through the umbilical cord and placenta? What? What point are you trying to make here? How can you possibly say that just because the fetus has an umbilical cord/placenta attatching it to the mother that this is indirect contact? (I can see you getting out your dictionary now so you can give me the strict, narrow Oxford definition of the word “indirect”:) It is still intimately attatched to the mother through an elaborate and very vascular network, one that if a problem develops in(such as placenta abruption) can cause death to both the mother and the fetus. This seems more of a direct contact than your strict parasite definition would indicate. You are splitting hairs and are playing a game of inches here–just as you accuse people who defend intact d & e do. (“Partial birth abortion” to some, although that is not a term the medical community uses as a medical term). Any reasonable person is not going to say “Hmmm, so if the fetus is attatched to the umbilical cord/placenta, and _then_ to the uterine wall, then I guess it is not in _close_ contact with the pregnant woman.” Again, the heartworm is not attatched at all to the host as an adult, yet it is still considered a parasite.

So what if the fetus is in an ammniotic sac–it is not completely cut off from the mother as a walled off parasitic cyst would be. It is not free floating in some magic bubble totally unattatched to and unaffected by influences that affect the mother. That’s why women hopefully don’t drink, smoke, take certain drugs during pregnancy. It will affect the fetus. And that’s why many anti-parasitic drugs are oral. Because what the host ingests can affect the parasite.

You never did answer my question about women in other countries who don’t have the resources and options to carry high risk pregancies to term without jeopardizing their lives and possibly leaving their other children orphans. Extremely poor countries such as Nicaragua, where birth control, abortion and adoption are illegal, and where the people are so poor that when we pack up donations to send to them, they use the plastic bags we put the items in to insulate their shacks. There are many, many orphans. The woman we know who does missionary work there wanted to adopt one of the orphans who had a chronic medical issue that in this country is manageable, but the country does not allow adoption. No,I am not saying “Oh her mother should have aborted her then.” I am saying that you don’t seem to have any empathy for women who don’t have reources for their pregnancies _at all_. There are no safety nets for women in many other countries. What are you doing to help them help their babies? What are you doing to decrease abortion here and abroad since you feel so passionately about it? I am thinking you musy be doing something to be so self rightious about everything.

I do my small part for charities. I do what I have time for and a talent for. That said, I don’t plan on spending any more time trying to have any sort of rational discussion with you; life is too short I regret the time I spent already.

If it’s feeding off of me while it resides in me, it’s a parasitic relationship.

I’m appalled at the number of “pro-life” people who want to force a family to watch a horribly mal/under-formed wanted child die a painful and terrible death. Or mock the decision of a woman to terminate a wanted pregnancy. Oh that’s right! It’s quantity of life, not quality, with such people.

The thing forced-birthers can’t wrap their brain around is that it boils down to a woman’s bodily autonomy (big words, I know). I refuse to host a potential human in my body. End of story. Whether my reasons meet the moral litmus test of anyone else doesn’t matter. At all. What matters is that it is my own decision based on my own morals and situation.

Oh, and consent to sex is no more automatic consent to pregnancy than driving in my car is consent to be mangled in a crash.

I realized that I wasn’t clear when I was speaking about my family’s friend who wanted to adopt a child from Nicaragua. This was several years ago. Upon rereading what I wrote, I realized I put that in the present tense, not the past tense. Now adoption is possible, but at that time it was not. The abortion and birth control issues there are pretty bleak still. Their incredibly restrictive abortion law (only with 3 doctors permission IF it was deemed your life was in danger–the punishments were pretty nasty if the law was disobeyed and you were caught) was repealed not long ago and now all abortion is illegal. Our friend told us birth control there was illegal at that time. I believe that it is actually available through the gov’t now though.
Anyway, I apologize for not having been clear the first time. My error.

Kristen, when considering all the atrocities, poverty and lack that occurs worldwide- such as the genocidal slaughter of the Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda, the horrific events in Darfur and Sudan and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza, it is hard to feel deserving of the relatively easy and safe life we have in the United States. There are so many unsafe places around the world for minorities, women and children. Starvation, disease and death. There is so much poverty and lack. I think it is common, for many of us who are aware of how MUCH we have in the US, to sometimes feel guilty for having so much available to us in the U.S. And your example of the children in Nicaragua and the heartbreak of not being able to help the children there who desperately need help.
Your question about the money it costs to maintain a high risk pregnancy and keep alive the preterm babies seems out of place, however. Are you suggesting that because there are nations around the world that have so little and can’t afford to care for their high risk pregnancies and preterm babies that we should kill our preterm babies, too? Then would you suggest that we should starve ourselves and our children because there are people who don’t have enough to eat? I mean we should do our part to not be wasteful but to also appreciate the resources we have in the U.S. and use them when they are desperately needed. Wasting money keeping babies alive??? Doesn’t that sound cruel to you? If you consider THAT a waste of money I wonder what you call corporate corruption or excessive spending by the extremely wealthy? Keeping a preterm baby alive is priceless (for that baby and his or her parents). Can we put a price on human life? (This person’s life is worth this and their life is worth this…) And while it seems unfair (is unfair!) that not every mother and family could have the resources and support that we have in the U.S., it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep our babies alive, kill them or let them die, or use refuse to use our adoption services that we have available to US. We could be a model to other parts of the world- to demonstrate how we treat even our youngest citizens. An example for them to look to as they work to strengthen and better their country as a whole.

And then I remember China’s “one child policy” and how it has driven couples to abort girls babies as well as any child after the first one. Those who give birth to girls may abandon them or leave them to die, such as in 2001 when an English tourist witnessed a newly born and abandon baby (a girl) lying naked, dying by the side of the road. Some Chinese people stopped to look at the dying baby girl but no one stopped to help or try to save the baby! In China they have become as desensitized to the horror of killing unborn and newborn babies- as we in the Western world have become to killing unborn babies. It’s a slippery slope. It’s okay to kill this age of human, in these circumstances for these reasons… but no wait, it’s okay for all other reasons, too. Where is the line that we WON’T cross? Before birth it’s okay to kill a baby? Right after birth it’s not okay?… unless it was an unsuccessful abortion and the worthless fetus was accidentally born alive, then it’s okay to let that baby die their slow and painful death? Oh, I forgot – you pro aborts “own” your babies, right? They are your “property” You can treat them as you wish, kill them if you wish. Yeah…

I was looking at the popular Pro choice reference book “Our Bodies, Our Selves” by the Boston Woman’s Health Book Collective copyright 2005… And was alarmed to see that in Chapter 20, Reproductive Choices, on the section of Abortion there was not one word about WHAT the women were choosing to abort. First Trimester abortion… Nothing about the embryo or fetus. Second Trimester abortion… again nothing about the fetus. Just “it’s YOUR CHOICE”. And of course they don’t mention Third Trimester abortion at all. If I were a pro choice woman and found out people offered me information about a choice but they wrote an entire chapter on the “choice” but didn’t include even ONE word or image (a picture is worth a thousand words) of the “choice” I would make I would be OUTRAGED! Not offering any information about what abortion kills is one thing, but then on pg.399 I was even more outraged to see that they have 3 images of a 1st trimester abortion and the (cannula) suction tube showed to be inserted into an *EMPTY* amniotic sac into the woman’s uterus! I’m NOT JOKING!!! This is an outrage! The uterus and amniotic sac inside the uterus were sized to accommodate a 11-12 week fetus… but shockingly they forgot to draw the little fetus inside the amniotic fluid! THIS ISN’T JUST A LACK OF INFORMATION BEING PRESENTED… THIS IS FLAT OUT LYING! In the 3 images they depict the suction aspiration sucking up the amniotic fluid inside the amniotic sack… BUT NO FETUS! That is absolutely unacceptable and pro choice women should be so disgusted that they are being so blatantly lied to. The 11-12 week fetus at that time looks like this: http://www.babycenter.com/fetal-development-images-12-weeks . The fact that they left the fetus out of the womb is an absolutely dirty, despicable, horrendous act. They are lying to women, when they claim the “pro lifers” lie. BULL____.

Then on page 401 they claim the abortion procedure (D&E) during the 2nd trimester abortion allows the “pregnancy tissue to pass”. Vomit. Pregnancy tissue???? HAH!!! Really, women of America, you have to expect MORE than that!!! Is that okay with you, as a “pro choice” woman? To be misled, lied to and dumbed down major information? The pro choice movement leaders don’t think you can handle the truth, do they? And you follow this movement? Stand up and find out the truth and EXPECT the truth! If you believe in killing fetuses who are worthless blobs of tissue, at least be honest about that and find out about that fetus. They say “ignorance is bliss”… but it’s also deadly.

One more note on this “book”… on the following chapter (21) Pregnancy… I could not find ONE WORD about the unborn baby’s growth in the womb. The entire chapter “forgets” to mention anything about the baby, only the woman’s leg cramps and food cravings, etc. How can you compose a chapter of a book on Pregnancy and neglect to add even one piece of information on the unborn baby? Mind blowing, mind numbing. It’s no wonder to me they leave out VITAL information like this. If they were to include information about the fetus I can’t imagine how many women would opt out of that “choice” (of course there are those women who just don’t give a damn how developed it is, it’s their parasite, their property) but there are a good number of women who KNOW it’s not their right to kill a human being who so clearly looks just like a human being, so developed- so soon.

I LOVE choices and would LOVE to call myself “pro choice”. IF it weren’t for that darned little human messing things up for me… but if someone can show me it’s NOT a little human, at the beginning of the fetal period around 8 weeks (Diane, I’m not talking about the 2 week old blastulocyst and the multiplying cells of an embryo, which occurs BEFORE or shortly after most of use even realize we’ve missed a menstrual period, find out were pregnant or make it into the abortionist to get abortions.) I’m just having a hard time finding the data to SHOW (scientifically, not just pro abort rhetoric…blob of tissue, etc.) that it’s not developed with all the parts that we adults have… namely: arms, legs, hands, toes, fingers, eyes, nose, mouth, ears, beating heart…) Maybe you pro aborts have some important fetologogy research I just can’t seem to put my finger on? One thing for sure, pro aborts should decide to be more knowledgeable than the author’s of “Our Bodies, Our Selves” gives them credit for!

About your China example, I just wanted to point out that that is nothing new. It was common custom for centuries to do that to newborn girls. Don’t make it out to be a recent occurance. Abortion isn’t the root od the issue there, cultral values towards girls are.

I appreciate your post. My grandmother raised me. Also, I doubt very seriously that I would have wound up in that great a home, if she would have chosen adoption. I’m Hispanic, and we all know the majority of couples wanting to adopt are looking for white newborns. In my situation, my mother tried caring for me a few times, but the care always fell to grandma by default. More than likely I would have wound up in foster care, in the system. Grandma wasn’t all that great as a mom either, but she did the best she could. In any case, I’m glad I didn’t wind up in foster care.

It’s nice that you can have your rose-tinted view of kids and z/e/f’s, considering you like kids and all. I wish I had that luxury.

Instead, I grew (am growing up in) a house with emotionally and psychologically abusive parents. And, irony of ironies, they’re Roman Catholic. You know, the assholes who claim that using condoms and BC actually help cause AIDS and basically make women choose between motherhood or the nunnery.

Honestly, some days, I wish I’d never been born. I wish I hadn’t had to experience my father screwing with my head by making me dig through a pile of mulch with horse shit in it for my contacts case. All because I was a hormonal and unstable teenager and said I hated my contacts. Tell me, Sara, was it better for me to believe that I might have been pricked by the used syringes my father told me to watch out for? Would not existing in the first place be worse than seriously planning out my suicide at age 14?

Was it worth it to be forcibly separated from my best friend and from everything I loved because I supported gays? Is living with a family who thinks you’re an overweight, uneducated, liberal atheist nutjob the “sanctity of life” you’re trying to defend? Can you honestly tell me that being financially chained to these people is better off than never even knowing I was alive?

I could tell you how this has affected me. I could tell you about my anxiety problems, I could tell you about how I’m just learning to be a social creature. I could tell you about the problems with cutting I’ve had, I could tell you about the mind-numbing depression I’ve gone through. But I won’t.

I’ll only say that living with these “pious Christians” has only affirmed my desire to never be them, and to never have children. Because if I have brief, violent flashes of temper where I want to hurt my precious dog…I shudder to think of what I’d do to any hypothetical children. And I’ve been getting counseling and antidepressants since eighth grade. I’m not cut out to have children, period. I refuse to hurt anyone, and part of taking that responsibility means keeping myself out of positions where I might find myself needing to hurt either myself or others.

If life were easy, I’d be able to get my tubes tied or Essured, no problem. But thanks to the Religious Reich, I will have to jump through hoops as a young, single woman just to get an IUD.

So if I get pregnant – and yes, it is possible to get pregnant even using multiple methods of BC – I *will* abort. Because I refuse to become my mother and my father, or worse. Adoption is not an option for me. I will not contribute to a system that is racist and ageist. I am a white woman with good physical health – any spawn I’d pop out would get gobbled up instantly. If you’re that eager to adopt, how about they get a 5-year-old black kid? Or a kid with Asperger’s?

Again, I’ll reiterate – I’m happy that you’ve been able to grow up in a lifestyle that allows you to view children and “children” so idealistically. I’ve not had that privilege. And fortunately, I still have the power to choose whether or not I carry a pregnancy to term. I intend to use it, and to continue to fight for it.

Stephanie,
While it may have occurred in the past- a LOT of crazy and unthinkable things have also occurred in past world (and U.S.) history. Just because people did horrific, unthinkable things doesn’t mean it’s okay for us to do them today. Today we know MUCH more. The ultrasound was invented just 30 years ago, in the mid 1970’s and since that time we can actually see what our baby’s are doing and how they are developing in utero. (For instance, it wasn’t that long ago people had no idea they were even having multiples until the time of delivery.) We know more today and we should use the knowledge, resources and societal stability that we have to advance WITH that knowledge.

HL,
It sounds like your life has been extremely challenging, to say the least. When I read about the way your caregivers (parents?) treated you it makes me very angry and if you are angry about the way they treated you you have EVERY reason to feel that way! Somehow we know when we are being mistreated (even as a child) and it hurts deeply- especially when it’s from a caregiver who is “supposed” to be the model of how to love.
That being said I don’t think that abortion is the cure-all to the upbringing that you have described. From what you wrote YOU personally, considered the way your life would be better if you weren’t alive at all. Is it true then that you are confusing your possible future child (you may have) with YOURSELF? You want to kill your baby (abortion) because you don’t want to live YOUR life? You talk about what struggles you have today, because of the way your caregivers mistreated you. But I would warn you to be careful with confusing YOUR Life with your future child’s life. As adults we can (and SHOULD) relearn and reestablish our TRUE identity (if it doesn’t match what our caregivers demonstrated to us). Not the messed up one an adult may have given us that doesn’t fit who we are or who we want to be.
It sounds like you are planning to live your past childhood in your future, but I think you would feel healthier and more empowered if you attempted to RElearn what you missed as a child and try to become who you TRULY think you are…to break free from what they tried to give you and live your OWN life, your OWN way. (And it sounds like you are already doing that with the help you are trying to get and being conscious of what has happened in your childhood). Then you could make real choices about being a parent, not from a place of fear, but of truth of what is best for you and your future.
It sounds like, along with not wanting to parent a child, for fear of how you might treat your child, you also don’t want to give birth to your child and give them up because you don’t like some aspects of adoption. So you would rather kill your baby? Again, is this what YOU want for YOURSELF? Because your baby would not be you, it is different little person. Did you consider that your baby would possibly want a chance to live? Would you let your baby live and give them up for adoption and let them decide about their own life? Why kill your baby rather than to find a loving home for him or her? Is that the kind of love you were shown growing up? Self-centered and conditional? (I’m not saying you are that… just that choosing death for your baby may be considered self-centered and not truly unconditional (what’s best for the other person) type of love.)

All of this being said, it bothers me the pro abortion movement clings to examples like yours to bolster their agenda. “If only you would abort your baby, the world would be great again!” No it won’t! Like I said in an earlier post, bad situations in childhood don’t discriminate on being “planned” or not. There is no way to PREDICT which babies in wombs will be the ones with the “bad” upbringings. Many “wanted” babies in utero end up living in a home with abusive relationship issues with their parents or families! Would it be okay to terminate those children’s lives? Health issues in children, abuse toward children, financial struggles in families… so many issues occur in so many families. No matter how many babies we abort there will always be struggles, abuse (emotional, verbal, physical, sexual), problems in families and problems having to do with children. It is sad… but it is true! Don’t believe the pro aborts when they cling to your example and say, “see, if women aborted their babies life would be good again.” it’s just not so. Your upbringing has been very similar to any number of VERY WANTED, VERY PLANNED pregnancies. Rather than believe the lie that abortion is the cure- we should instead do something to HELP babies, children and families… we should work for parent education, community support programs and education partnerships… etc. to help support parents, caregivers and children who encounter problems. Because those problems are bound to happen- even with legalized abortion. And as for you, it sounds as if you are trying to do good things for yourself by working to improve your own personal well being.

Yes, ROSE-TINTED is absolutely correct. I was trying to put a name to Sara’s attitude about all this, and “rose-tinted view” would be it.

After re-reading Sara’s post, I noticed 2 things:

Sara CAN’T address my (or anyone else’s) situation without resorting to graphic imagery. I asked her not to do that, but she did.

Sara never said she actually HAD friends like my mother (unwed, Hispanic, with absolutely NO maternal instinct). That was one of my questions to her, and she never answered it. She only provided a free mental evaluation for my mom. Like I mentioned before, I knew she wouldn’t let me down.

I’m not surprised because I remember surfing on “priests for life,” and someone there actually said that children keep their parents together. Children will cause their daddies to stay in a relationship. Of course I’ve disproved that one as well, since my father walked out on us shortly after I was born. When I read that on the priest for life website, my mouth dropped open. “Rose-tinted” doesn’t begin to describe what I read. Talk about living in a glass tower.

Roxanne,
If you think that NOT choosing to kill your developing human baby is a “rose tinted” way to live… then that is a sad take on our society and our hope for the future. That we need to kill our babies to make life livable! The day I subscribe to such a low view of humanity and our world is the day I give up on myself, my family, my child, my society and my world. I can’t believe our nation has nothing in the way of hope or truth to offer people (especially women) and “kill your unborn baby” is the best we have for them. It is easier to just have an abortion, but is there a better way? If I say no then I have lost hope for the world. And (to your pro abortion clan’s dismay) that is NOT the case. I HAVE NOT lost hope and I will not recite the PRO ABORTS PARROT SCRIPT of “your body your choice”. That’s a cop-out of a statement and the big shots in your movement KNOW IT.

You view me as looking through “rose tinted” glasses, but nothing could be further from the truth. Unwed (who uses that term nowadays anyway?) friends who are differing nationalities than me are a norm in my life, among countless other types of people, events and situations. But even if some of the people in my life are the best or worst in society shouldn’t affect the facts. The realities of fetal development, the secrecy of the pro abort rational, and the slippery slope of “whose life is worthy and whose life is not” that the pro aborts subscribe to.

And the graphic imagery is of what you support! Do you think I made up what abortion is and what it does to unborn babies (fetuses)? Come on! So typical of pro aborts for blaming others for what THEY do and believe in.
If you hadn’t noticed… YOUR “side” supports abortion! (There’s a shocker of a statment!) And also, if you hadn’t noticed… abortion is killing a human being (another shocker!!!). So please… if you can’t take the heat… get OUT of the kitchen! (BTW, it doesn’t totally surprise me that you and countless other pro aborts have problems reading about fetal development and abortion procedures… it’s the ignorance thing the pro abort movement has got going. The whole… “what fetus? abortion is only about a woman’s right to her OWN body!” Your clan doesn’t want to hear about what they are “terminating”. SAD BUT TRUE. Be wary, be VERY wary of that. The secrecy… the don’t talk about fetal development or related abortion specifics.

Just like the book “Our Bodies, Our Selves”… PACKED full of inaccuracies and left out, but VITAL, information (I don’t want to restate it all, note my previous post about that book). Any pro choicers notice the sneaky way the authors composed that book? Not a word about fetal development in the whole book. VERY TRICKY. If you are so prochoice… you shouldn’t have a problem reading about D&X or about fetal development. Don’t you think? I mean, what does it matter… It’s YOUR right! But… until then DON’T tell me I’m reading a parrot script, living in a glass house or being graphic for discussing what you yourself claim to believe in! If you don’t like abortion and what it terminates and how it terminates that human, you may want to reconsider your stance.

Additionally, how do YOU know I MYSELF am NOT “unwed” or divorced & Latino or another minority woman? Give me a break! The whole smokescreen of “you are not like us, or you aren’t ‘friends’ with people like us” is simply another one of your tactics to steer the conversation away from what abortion IS and what it DOES. Perhaps I’m just like you, perhaps I am your nationality, perhaps I am your a friend of your friend… you pro aborts will think up any reason to “beat down” a woman who is bringing to light facts (human life) and issues (the cruelty of abortion, especially late term abortion) that don’t suit your agenda.

Well, Sara, I’m not speaking for HL, but here’s one last question, and then I’m calling it a day, because this is really going nowhere:

What are YOU PERSONALLY doing to help these babies that are born, that you believe should not be aborted? what kind of volunteer work do you do? Have you adopted a special needs child?

Because pretty soon, parrot enough of the script, and people stop listening, if most have not already. But what are you doing to help kids that NEED your help? Besides trying to convince their mothers not to have abortions, how are you helping them out?

I do not appreciate you attempting to psychoanalyze me. If I want an opinion on my mental and psychological state, I will go to my psychiatrist and my counselor, thank you very much. Yes, I’m aware that we’re on the Internet, and that I’m putting myself out there, but your attitude towards my reproductive choices are so much like what I’ve seen from other lifers that I can’t really see anything that distinguishes you from them – or anything that would make me want to change my mind.

Have you considered that I might have other reasons I don’t want to be a parent? I loathe children. I prefer animals. I like being able to spend money on things that I like to do – what little I have, at any rate – than spend things on necessities for children I would neither want nor love.

And yes, I consider abortion to be a much more humane option than adoption. Consider this: Even if the nervous system is as developed as lifers claim to be by the time most abortions are done – what is there to feel? I’m not debating whether or not the fetus is alive, or human. I’m debating whether or not it can have emotions, thoughts, or understanding the same as you and I. Being trapped in a dark place for four to eight weeks? Can you prove that a fetus can understand humor, or love, or sadness?

On the other hand, an already-born child dumped into the adoption system gets to grow up in an institution where it knows it was not wanted or cared about. Where it lives every day knowing it was an accident, or unwanted. It’s a life where, for some minority, older, and special needs kids, they know it’s a crapshoot on whether or not the “noble” white middle-class couples will even care enough about them to look their way. The few lucky ones will. The many more will be dumped on the streets when they turn 18. I think we both know what psychological problems children without a solid upbringing have.

So yes. I consider it the more merciful choice to abort a fetus than to dump it in a system where it will be gobbled up at the price of giving another child a loving home – or be forced to stay with me, where I will neither love it nor want it. I do not consider that selfish. I consider that a responsible, wise choice. I thought like you once, when I was younger, ignorant, and dependent on the Church. I’m older now, I’ve been given the chance to think on my own. This is the path I’ve chosen. It will take a lot to sway me from it.

If it comforts you, though, I intend to do everything I can to make sure I don’t get impregnated. One of the conditions I will have for my fiancee is that he get a vasectomy if we’re to get married. Another is that if either one of us changes our mind about having children, that will be grounds for divorce. And if I have to go through ten opinions just to get an IUD, if I have to go through a hundred to get Essured – I’m willing to make that sacrifice. And I will be free of my religiously oppressive, manipulative family to be able to make that choice on my own.

I’m not the scared little Catholic girl that gets shipped off to a neighbor’s house to be stuffed in an attic and forgotten about until I go into labor. Not anymore.

Sarah Elizabeth,you, like most other anti-choicers, fail to actually address the issues presented to you.

No one who is truly pro-choice tells women, “If only you would abort your baby, the world would be great again!” The whole point is CHOICE. If a woman wants to carry an unplanned pregnancy and keep the baby or give it up for adoption that’s HER choice – and only her choice. And if she wants to terminate the pregnancy it’s also only her choice. It’s not up to you or the government or any deity you or anyone else believes in.

And please stop being so condescending regarding other people’s lives. It only proves how out of touch with the realities of life you are. There is no pro-choice “agenda” except to keep abortion safe, legal, and accessible to any woman who needs or wants one.

A couple more things, (I will take more time before posting a response to be sure I include everything at one time)… I didn’t offer a “free mental evaluation” of your mom, YOU did that in your first post- describing that she was miserable and that she didn’t have any maternal feelings toward you, etc. What I DID was to offer YOU some ways to THINK about your mother and your life. I didn’t evaluate her- only gave you my perspectives on how YOU CAN VIEW YOUR LIFE and the situations surrounding your life and in relation to your mother. We can view life any way we want to, some ways will help us to feel better (which should be our goal) and some ways will make us feel worse (which we shouldn’t try to do- unless we like being miserable and unhappy people). That being said, I just offered you a perspective. You can take it, alter it or disregard it all together…

The reason what I wrote (or write) may sound “rose tinted” is because I am actually trying to help with positive not death-driven (aka: abortion) perspectives. What the pro abortion clan has to offer you is, “have an abortion and terminate the life of your baby”. If thats what you have been getting and then to hear my perspectives that offer HOPE and REASON and EMPOWERMENT (yes, even info about what it is they suggest you terminate) I don’t blame you for feeling it sounds too good to be true! Yes, those are DRAMATICALLY different than the pro abort mantras!

I also KNOW that the MAJORITY of parents (not all, but most) want the best for their children, even if they aren’t perfect people and are dealing with their own issues and don’t do a very good job of parenting at times. The majority of people have some scars from their childhood. You can’t escape it. Even parents who appear to be “perfect”, they AREN’T.

If I’m too helpful the pro life girl is “rose tinted”, if I’m too distant the pro life girl is unsympathetic and disconnected from real life. Yet again, like I mentioned before, pro aborts will find any reason to harp on a person who thinks killing a developing human baby isn’t the amazing “choice” the proaborts claim it is.

“If only you would abort your baby, the world would be great again!” Huh?? People who are pro-choice are not out there trying to convince people to abort. We don’t push abortion on anyone. We just want women to have the option. Many many women who have had abortions also have children. We don’t hate children.

Oh, and your response to HL is one of the most condescending things that I’ve ever read.